About Injenia

Gaming solution expert Sirplay LTD opens up to new customers by switching to Google Cloud Platform from on-premises servers, with improved reliability even at high user volumes.

Google Cloud Platform Results

Accelerates development with automatic analysis and on-point monitoring

Focuses development work away from maintenance, thanks to managed services

Opens access to a tier of larger clients with higher user volumes

Faster development in a fast-changing market

By creating ready-to-use platforms for sports betting and other gaming, Sirplay LTD has rapidly established itself as a global player in the online gaming industry. Founded in 2005, today Sirplay has offices in Malta, Italy, Nigeria, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina, with operations in 25 countries through over 100 partners.

More than 70% of Sirplay’s turnover is reinvested in R&D at its Italian office, where a dedicated team looks for ways to optimise and improve the company’s products. “The online gaming market is twice as big as it was ten years ago, with a cumulative increase of $35 billion,” says Cavallaro Catello Stefano, Chief Innovation Officer at Sirplay. “The number of players is growing considerably, which creates challenges, as do requests for services such as live gaming. The market is in constant evolution, so we look to improve services offered by Sirplay continuously to push ahead of the competition.”

“Our target is to cater to larger customers, with more concurrent users. Our on-premises setup limited the number of concurrent connections that were possible. Google Cloud Platform is more responsive to that demand and delivers much greater performance.”

—Roberto Murasso, Executive Manager, Sirplay LTD

Sirplay’s previous on-premises server setup limited growth potential and became unstable at full capacity. The company’s R&D team decided to move to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for a more elastic infrastructure that could cater to larger user volumes and offer access to cutting-edge technology.

“At present we have around 150 customers worldwide, each of which may have hundreds of thousands of potential users,” says Roberto Murasso, Executive Manager at Sirplay. “Our target is to cater to larger customers, with more concurrent users. Our on-premises setup limited the number of concurrent connections that were possible. Google Cloud Platform is more responsive to that demand and delivers much greater performance.”

Moving to managed services

In fast-expanding markets, on-premises infrastructure can struggle to keep pace. For Sirplay, rapid growth in the online gaming industry put its on-premises server setup under increasing strain, compromising performance. “For years we pushed our on-premises system to its limits,” says Cavallaro. “As the market grew, those limits became a real source of frustration.”

According to Sirplay, an average online gaming platform hosts more than 500,000 users making 2,000 transactions every second. The company’s specialised platforms can handle 4 times that number of users, making 20 times as many transactions. “To expand our limits like that, we need a platform we can rely on,” says Cavallaro. “Online gaming is a complex industry, and our core values of trustworthiness and a global outlook need to be backed by the best technology available.”

“Google Stackdriver is the tool that has helped us most of all in speeding up development. From monitoring, to error reporting, it gives us detailed reports and automatic, on-point analysis. Our engineers love it.”

—Cavallaro Catello Stefano, Chief Innovation Officer, Sirplay LTD

To do that, Sirplay began working on Google Cloud Platform with Google Cloud Partner Injenia. “By choosing Google we have chosen a company with extensive experience and a reputation for reliability,” says Cavallaro. “Injenia clarified our doubts and questions, giving us an additional level of support based on its expertise with Google Cloud Platform.” The team began creating select applications on Google App Engine, before getting to work on new products hosted entirely on Google Cloud Platform.

“When a new need arose during the development stage, we would simply browse the options on Google Cloud Platform,” says Cavallaro. “There is always a SaaS or PaaS ready to be used, so we can focus on developing the business aspects of our applications.” Sirplay takes advantage of managed-services across Google Cloud Platform, from using Google Kubernetes Engine for smooth application deployment, to storing data in Google BigQuery ready for Google Cloud Machine Learning. “Google Stackdriver is the tool that has helped us most of all in speeding up development,” says Cavallaro. “From monitoring to error reporting, it gives us detailed reports and automatic, on-point analysis. Our engineers love it.”

“Our primary need is for a stable platform,” says Roberto. “In the past we couldn't manage parallel systems. We have 150 products on the on-premises platform, which did not always have enough reserve capacity to maintain all of our services. Google didn’t just provide those services, it gives us support, too, like the chance to test out new products.”

“One of the reasons we chose Google Cloud Platform is the opportunity to manage big data with products such as Google Cloud Pub/Sub, Google BigQuery, and Google Cloud Bigtable. There are no limits on what we store and analyse. We are investing for a future of machine learning, to help us better understand the needs of our customers.”

—Roberto Murasso, Executive Manager, Sirplay LTD

Investing in future growth

Now, Sirplay has moved development of new products onto Google Cloud Platform, and plans to release the first fruits of that development in the near future. “From the tests we’ve carried out on our GCP products, we can already see improved performance,” says Cavallaro. “The responsiveness of Google Cloud Platform and its ability to handle a large number of concurrent requests will enable us to provide better service.”

“One of the reasons we chose Google Cloud Platform is the opportunity to manage big data with products such as Google Cloud Pub/Sub, Google BigQuery, and Google Cloud Bigtable,” says Roberto. “There are no limits on what we store and analyse. By keeping data in those products, we are investing for a future of machine learning, to help us better understand the needs of our customers.”